Relationships among exchange rates, intervention, and interest rates: An empirical investigation

This study uses herefore unavailable daily data on official intervention to test the joint hypotheses of perfect asset substitutability and exchange market efficiency. This joint hypothesis is generally soundly rejected for six exchange rates over various sample periods. In contrast to evidence elsewhere from weekly or monthly data, lagged intervention is a significant determinant of realized profits in about half the cases; this evidence is consistent with existence of a portfolio-balance channel, at least in the short-run. Other evidence indicates that coordinated intervention sometimes may have an impact significantly different from intervention by one central bank alone.     

Pronóstico de los índices accionarios DAX y S&P 500 con redes neuronales diferenciales

This paper uses a differential neural network (DNN) to describe the behavior of daily closing values of German DAX and USA S&P 500 stock indices between July 3, 2000 and January 13, 2012. Then, by the use of DNN a four-week forecast is performed of the daily closing values of these indices, from January 16 to February 10, 2012. The results obtained confirm that the differential neural networks can become one of the most powerful and accurate tools to predict future values of financial assets.     

Do local analysts have an informational advantage in forecasting stock returns? Evidence from the German DAX30

Utilizing data from the German DAX30 stock index, we investigate whether local analysts have an informational advantage in forecasting stock returns. We analyze whether banks’ buy and sell recommendations improve on the out-of-sample predictability of daily stock returns and the market-timing ability of investors who base their decisions on such recommendations. We find that, indeed, in a few cases German banks do have better stock-forecasting ability for daily stock returns than do foreign banks. However, the value added of bank recommendations is generally small and sensitive to the model-selection criterion used by an investor in setting up a forecasting model for stock returns.     

Análise da implementação de uma estratégia de investimento em ações baseada em um instrumento de apoio à decisão

The present study analyzes the interface between two disciplinary fields - finance and operational research. In this sense, it integrates two approaches to investment analysis - fundamental and technical, as well as an investor’s concern at the time of resources allocation in a Buy & Hold investment strategy. The study uses the Multicriteria Decision Aid (MCDA) as an instrument of intervention. As for results, it was evident that the instrument of intervention used, together with a pre-defined investment strategy, was able to support the decision maker at the time of allocation of resources, generating an accumulated return of 25.14 % in the period, compared with a negative return -13.41% of the Bovespa index in the same period. In order to check the robustness of results, regressions were performed with both the CAPM model as daily and weekly data, and the t test performed on the coefficients of the regression was significant at 1% for the abnormal return of weekly data and 0.1% for the return of abnormal daily data; in addition, the t-statistic was positive in both cases, indicating the presence of abnormal positive feedback, i.e., the portfolio proposed here outperformed its benchmark.     

European equity market integration and joint relationship of conditional volatility and correlations

We analyse the integration patterns of seven leading European stock markets from 1990 to 2013 using daily data and mismatched monthly macroeconomic data. To study the mismatch of data frequencies we use the DCC-MIDAS (Dynamic Conditional Correlation – Mixed Data Sampling) technique developed by Colacito, Engle and Ghysels (Journal of Econometrics, 2011). We benchmark European integration patterns against the German stock market. The reported integration patterns show a clear divide between large and (relatively) small equity markets' short run and long run return correlations: the small markets display higher short run European convergences than the large markets and vice versa. The across-the-board divergence from Greek risk, during the crisis period, is the most unambiguous conclusion of our study. During this period, cross-country joint relationships of conditional variances and return correlations – a ‘convergence of risks’ resulting in global/regional contagious spillovers – are typically positive. Only exceptions are the German stock market's joint relationships.     

A New Method for Identifying the Effects of Foreign Exchange Interventions

Central banks react even to intraday changes in the exchange rate; however, in most cases, intervention data are available only at a daily frequency. This temporal aggregation makes it difficult to identify the effects of interventions on the exchange rate. We apply the Bayesian Markov‐chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach to this endogeneity problem. We use “data augmentation” to obtain intraday intervention amounts and estimate the efficacy of interventions using the augmented data. Applying this new method to Japanese data, we find that an intervention of 1 trillion yen moves the yen/dollar rate by 1.8%, which is more than twice as much as the magnitude reported in previous studies applying ordinary least squares to daily observations. This shows the quantitative importance of the endogeneity problem due to temporal aggregation.     

The term structure of the forward premium

Most studies of the efficiency of the foreign exchange market focus on a single maturity — usually a one month forward exchange rate. However, one observes that forward contracts of many maturities are simultaneously traded in the foreign exchange market. The hypothesis that the foreign exchange market uses all available information has implications for the joint behavior of forward exchange rates of various maturities. This paper proposes an equilibrium theory of the term structure of the forward premium. The model is tested using data on the German and Canadian exchange rates; the results indicate that the data are consistent with the theory for Germany and inconsistent with the theory for Canada.     

Capped hospital budgets,risk-influencing activities and financial consequences

It has long been recognized in the health economics literature that increased financial incentives for better-informed health care providers not only lead to desirable efficiency gains and cost savings but may have unintended consequences. Accounting-based cost containment instruments like capped budgets or prospective payment may induce physicians and hospitals to systematically avoid high-cost patients. Our paper uses an empirical approach backed by theoretical arguments to study a small German hospital’s reactions to a major increase in financial incentives. We first describe essential features of the German hospital sector and developments that led to the introduction of capped budgets for hospital care in 1993. Next, incentives to treat high-cost patients before and after the reform are analyzed in more detail. Using an anesthesia-related patient severity score (ASA score) as a proxy for financial patient risk, we empirically address the question of how the distribution of ASA scores has changed over time at the hospital for the 1989–2002 period. Our analysis of detailed operating room data reveals that the number of high-risk patients (high-ASA score) showed a systematic and significant decrease after the introduction of capped budgets. Using data from the new German DRG-reimbursement system, we also gain some preliminary evidence of the possible financial consequences of such practices.     

Using information quality for volatility model combinations

This paper proposes updated methodology for volatility model combinations which account for the informational content of innovations. An adaptive measure of information quality serves for the selection of model weights in order to improve daily volatility forecasts. The information quality proxy is related to the size of unexpected shocks in the volatility process. Our approach is illustrated in an empirical study with German stock market data.     

Are structured products ‘fairly’ priced? An analysis of the German market for equity-linked instruments

Based on a unique data set, this paper examines the pricing of equity-linked structured products in the German market. The daily closing prices of a large variety of structured products are compared to theoretical values derived from the prices of options traded on the Eurex (European Exchange). For the majority of products, the study reveals large implicit premiums charged by the issuing banks in the primary market. A set of driving factors behind the issuers’ pricing policies is identified, for example, underlying and type of implicit derivative(s). For the secondary market, the product life cycle is found to be an important pricing parameter.     

The Asymmetric Impact of Monetary Policy on Currency Markets

This study examines whether tightening and easing actions of the Federal Reserve symmetrically influence currency markets. Using daily data on four exchange rates from 1989 to 2001, we find that changes in the Fed's interest rate target are positively related to changes in the value of the dollar. Surprises associated with monetary tightening have a larger announcement effect as compared to monetary easing for the British pound, German mark, and Canadian dollar, whereas the opposite is true for the Japanese yen. The results appear to be driven by the reactions of foreign central banks to Fed actions, the Fed's credibility as a policymaker, and by the change in the Fed's disclosure policy beginning in 1994.     

Transmission of shocks from cross-listed markets to the return and volatility of domestic stocks

This paper examines the transmission of information from German and the U.S. markets to domestic markets using daily price and volume data of 264 stocks from 26 countries that are traded in their home country and cross-listed outside their home market as depository receipts (DRs); in the German market as Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) and in the U.S. as American Depository Receipts (ADRs). We identify days with significant news arrivals in a market through minimum thresholds for both significant absolute price change and trading volume. DR returns and volatilities are affected by the shocks in the markets where they are cross-listed controlling for domestic shocks. Contemporaneous and/or lagged shocks to the cross-listed markets are transmitted to domestic stock returns and volatilities. South American DRs are affected mostly by U.S. shocks, while Eastern European DRs show greater reaction to the German shocks.     

The role of hostile stakes in German corporate governance

This article uses clinical evidence to show how the German system of corporate control and governance is both more active and more hostile than has previously been suggested. It provides a complete breakdown of ownership and takeover defence patterns in German listed companies and finds highly fragmented (but not dispersed) ownership in non-majority controlled firms. We document how the accumulation of hostile stakes can be used to gain control of target companies given these ownership patterns. The article also suggests an important role for banks in helping predators accumulate, and avoid the disclosure of, large stakes.     

Impact of idiosyncratic volatility on stock returns: A cross-sectional study

This paper proposes a new approach to estimate the idiosyncratic volatility premium. In contrast to the popular two-pass regression method, this approach relies on a novel GMM-type estimation procedure that uses only a single cross-section of return observations to obtain consistent estimates. Also, it enables a comparison of idiosyncratic volatility premia estimated using stock returns with different holding periods. The approach is empirically illustrated by applying it to daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual US stock return data over the course of 2000–2011. The results suggest that the idiosyncratic volatility premium tends to be positive on daily return data, but negative on monthly, quarterly, and annual data. They also indicate the presence of a January effect.     

THE EXPECTATIONS HYPOTHESIS OF THE TERM STRUCTURE IN EUROCURRENCY MARKETS

This paper uses daily eurocurrency deposit rates for six currencies to extend previous research on the expectations hypothesis of the term structure. The reported results confirm earlier findings that the behavior of long term interest rates is perverse. For example, it is shown that in the case of five-year eurocurrency deposits denominated in US dollars, German marks and Swiss francs, the coefficient relating the excess holding period return to the yield spread between long and short term securities exceeds one, implying that long term rates tend to move in a direction opposite to the prediction of the expectations hypothesis. This study also employs a variety of techniques to examine the temporal stability of the coefficient in both the long and short maturity regressions used in testing the expectations hypothesis. While we do find instability, the nature of the parameter variation is markedly different from that found in foreign exchange markets when similar tests are employed.     

Testing the bivariate mixture hypothesis using German Stock market data

According to the bivariate mixture hypothesis (BMH) as proposed by Tauchen and Pitts (1983) and Harris (1986, 1987) the daily price changes and the corresponding trading volume on speculative markets follow a joint mixture of distributions with the unobservable number of daily information events serving as the mixing variable. Using German stock market data of 15 major companies the distributional properties of the BMH is tested employing maximum-likelihood as well as generalised method of moments estimation techniques. In addition to providing a new approach for the pointwise estimation of the latent information arrival rate based on the maximum-likelihood method, we investigate the time-series properties of the BMH. the major results can be summarised as follows: (i) the distributional characteristics of the data (especially leptokurtosis and skewness in the distribution of price changes and volume respectively) cannot be explained satisfactorily by the BMH; univariate mixture models for price changes and trading volume separately reveal a possible specification error in the model; (ii) a univariate normal mixture model can account for the observed distributional characteristics of price changes; (iii) the estimated process of the latent information rate cannot fully explain the time-series characteristics of the data (especially the volatility clustering or ARCH-effects).     

A nesting framework for Markov-switching GARCH modelling with an application to the German stock market

In this paper, we establish a generalized two-regime Markov-switching GARCH model which enables us to specify complex (symmetric and asymmetric) GARCH equations that may differ considerably in their functional forms across the two Markov regimes. We show how previously proposed collapsing procedures for the Markov-switching GARCH model can be extended to estimate our general specification by means of classical maximum-likelihood methods. We estimate several variants of the generalized Markov-switching GARCH model using daily excess returns of the German stock market index DAX sampled during the last decade. Our empirical study has two major findings. First, our generalized model outperforms all nested specifications in terms of (a) statistical fit (when model selection is based on likelihood ratio tests) and (b) out-of-sample volatility forecasting performance. Second, we find significant Markov-switching structures in German stock market data, with substantially differing volatility equations across the regimes.     

The analysis of foreign exchange data using waveform dictionaries

This paper uses waveform dictionaries to decompose the signals contained within three foreign exchange rates using tick-by-tick observations obtained world wide. The three exchange rates examined are the Japanese Yen and the German Deutsche Mark against the U.S. dollar and the Deutsche Mark against the Yen. The data were provided by Olsen Associates.A wabeform dictionary is a class of transforms that generalizes both windowed Fourier transforms and wavelets. Each waveform is parameterized by location, frequency, and scale. Such transforms can analyze signals that have highly localized structures in either time or frequency space as well as broad band structures; that is, waveforms can, in principle, detect everything from shocks represented by Dirac Delta functions, to short bursts of energy within a narrow band of frequencies, to the presence of frequencies that occur sporadically, and finally to the presence of frequencies that hold over the entire observed period. Waveform dictionaries are most useful in analyzing data that are not stationary and non-stationarity up to second order is well recognized in the context of foreign exchange rates.     

Evaluating foreign exchange market intervention: Self-selection,counterfactuals and average treatment effects

Estimating the effect of official foreign exchange market intervention is complicated by the fact that intervention at any point entails a “self-selection” choice made by the authorities and that no counterfactual is observed. To address these issues, we estimate the “counterfactual” exchange rate movement in the absence of intervention by introducing the method of propensity-score matching to estimate the “average treatment effect” (ATE) of intervention. To derive the propensity scores we estimate central bank intervention reaction functions. We estimate the ATE for daily official intervention in Japan over the January 1999–March 2004 period. This sample encompasses a remarkable variation in intervention frequencies as well as unprecedented frequent intervention towards the latter part of the period. We find that only sporadic and relatively infrequent intervention is effective.     

New Risk-Based Capital Standards in the European Union: A Proposal Based on Empirical Data

In response to criticism concerning the current solvency system, the European Commission is developing new rules for insurance companies operating in the member states of the European Union (EU). Under this so-called Solvency II concept, an insurer is allowed to verify its solvency by using an internal risk management model previously approved by the regulatory authority. In this article we develop such an internal risk management approach for property-liability insurers that is based on dynamic financial analysis (DFA). The proposed concept uses a simulation technique and models the central risk factors from the investment and underwriting areas of an insurance company. On the basis of the data provided by a German insurer, the ruin probabilities under different scenarios and varying planning horizons are calculated.